Activision Holiday Quarter Sales Rise 80% To $1.48 Billion

Publisher Activision has announced record holiday quarter results with sales up 80 percent to $1.48 billion and profits up to $272.2 million, with record breaking performance of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Sales rose from $824.3 million the year prior, and profits of $142.8 million. For the first nine months of Activision's fiscal year, sales have nearly doubled the year prior to $2.3 billion, and profits tripled from $100.2 million to $300.7 million. The publisher says it expects $350 million in sales for its current fiscal quarter ending in March, and for its full fiscal 2008 year, Activision says it expects sales of $2.65. The publisher says its recent highlights include Call of Duty 4 coming in as top unit seller in calendar 2007 with seven million cross-platform copies sold, and Guitar Hero III coming in as top seller in terms of dollars, with the total Guitar Hero franchise taking in more than $1 billion over its 26 months in North America alone. Looking internationally, Activision notes that its overseas publishing sales grew 106 percent over the year prior in the holiday quarter, and 119 percent for the first nine months. Activision also says the antitrust waiting period has expired for its planned merger with Vivendi, and, pending European antitrust clearance and approval from Activision's stockholders, it expects the merger to go through in the first half of calendar 2008. Said CEO Robert Kotick, "For the first time, we were the #1 U.S. console and handheld publisher for the calendar year, according to The NPD Group. With video game software sales increasing 37% in the United States overall, the video game market growth exceeded even our own forecasts, and we believe this momentum will continue over the coming years. Broader audiences are responding to products like Guitar Hero and we expect that the demographics for video games will continue to expand.”